Nine months after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan, life has not returned to normal for residents who lived near the power plant. After facing evacuations, many remain displaced. National Geographic investigated the abandoned town Namie, which has been called the "forgotten town."

Namie is one of five towns, two cities, and two villages that lie partially or wholly within a 12.4-mile radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant—designated by the government as a no-go zone. Like all the towns in the nuclear exclusion zone, it essentially no longer exists. Of its 21,000 residents, 7,500 have scattered across Japan. Another 13,500 live in temporary housing in the Fukushima region. They're among more than 70,000 "nuclear refugees" displaced by the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

The full article by Lucille Craft appears in the December 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine, on newsstands now.